Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Before viewing this vid clip, don't forget that Zaphod Beeblebrox may be the only living being who has ever emerged from the Total Perspective Vortex as sane as he went in.

My first experience of this kind of vertiginous view of our place in the universe was an extraordinary illustrated book called Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 Jumps by Kees Boeke (with us positioned in the middle between the infinitesimally small, and the mind-bogglingly large and deep...) This was done in drawings (1957) because among other things we did not have a whole view of the earth at that point, or maybe something from a satellite only? No human had seen the Earth from space.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

In case you don't have time to commit to Bobby's well designed course, step-by-step introductions to all the major communication channels available (mostly for free), then just spend a moment with this (out-of-date) YouTube clip.

I dropped out of school in 1964 because I told them they were teaching me stuff that would prove irrelevant to my life (smart-ass kid, getoutofhere) - like, I asked them if I could learn Chinese in the sixth-form (pre-university level school - 16-18 years old - I have no idea what they call that in the USA, China, Japan, India, etc).

I think I might have got something right, even if they considered me a stupid smart-ass kid at the time.If I could read/write/speak Chinese right now I could have a good job almost anywhere on the planet. Hey ho.

No, I don't have any Chinese (thanks, fellas) but I set out to 'get' internet at the age of 54 (what people who use the Christian calendar vaguely remember as The Millennium, or 2000) and have had a decade of fun - still learning...

...who I studied with online for 3 years. If you have 7 minutes, this YouTube clip might give you a mind-bending sample of the tutor I so enjoyed studying with.

This YouTube piece came from the online course currently run by Bobby Campbell, one of my fellow students.

Robert Anton Wilson's polio came back towards the end of his life, and he couldn't go out on lecture tours any more, so he set up an online study group. We had the pleasure of his company for his last 3 years...

Monday, November 08, 2010

If you wonder at lessening blog posts here and there, I have once again joined the fray to write 50,000 words of fiction in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Apparently even more people started this year, it was trending on Twitter (whatever that means), etc.

Family visits, travelling, gigs and various other incidents mean that I have barely kept up the pace as yet, but I have gritted my teeth and staggered on (surely I should feel this way at the end of a marathon?) And although I don't update my word count every day, you can see here that I am making an effort. Some of the shortfall is scribbled in pencil in a notebook, and awaiting typing up...